I wrote about the first Lifestreaming Wordpress theme released over at Woo Themes a while back. They have recently added 2 more and appear to be offering strong support for their inclusion, even providing a navigation category to locate them. Below is info on these 2 new additions.
As always, BlogTheme is built on our very popular backend, which includes some non-standard, non-average customisation options;
A Twitter header banner showing your most recent tweet.
A nifty accordion sidebar, which displays only the content that the user decides to display;
Widgetized sidebar to allow you full control of what happens in your sidebar; and
5 vibrant colour schemes to choose from…
I’m pretty sure that both of these themes, as well as their previous one are utilizing the great Lifestream Plugin by David Cramer.
I really like the look and functionality of THiCK. Beyond the Lifestreaming features, I was impressed by the collapsible “My” sections widget.
These are premium themes so they are not free. THiCK will set you back $70 and BlogTheme runs $40 (for single user licenses). They also offer a 3 month membership that provides you with access to all of their themes for $150 which seems like the deal to go for.
I like these guys and their support of Lifestreaming, so I’ve become an affiliate and have added them as a sponsor to the site. So if you’re interested, please click on the banner below and your purchase will put a few coins in my pocket as well.
Lastly, remember to visit the Create section of the site as I continue to update it with all the new tools and services available for you to create and make the most of your Lifestream.
VizEdu, a site that explains Social Media, Web2.0, Search and Emerging technologies visually, just posted an animation that provides an overview of Lifestreaming. For their example they illustrate FriendFeed’s use as a service and provide Steve Rubel’s Lifestream as an example.
It’s a nice quick overview of Lifestreaming that can be used as a tool for mainstreamers to get a quick idea behind the concept of Lifestreaming.
Here’s the animation
A few weeks ago Common Craft also released an instructional Lifestreaming video. It was created as a promotional tool for new Lifestreaming functionality coming to Windows Live but is also generic enough to provide a useful explanation for others.
Here’s the video
I wrote about Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google’s recent foray into Lifestreaming here.
New post over at startuparabia.com alerted me to a new service called Minixr being launched out of Algeria. They called the service “a mix of Pownce and FriendFeed” and after playing with the site for a while, I totally agree.
After creating your account you can have it import and aggregate your data from 10 sites which include Digg, Reddit, Flickr, YouTube, Seesmic, Delicious, Diigo, Smugmug, Vimeo and Last.fm but no ability to add your own RSS feed.
If you are a user of Pownce you will notice a very distinct familiarity with the UI. The top is highlighted with a posting bar that includes the same items such as message, link, event but omits file in lieu of photo (local upload), video (provide YouTube link), and audio (local upload).
Click on image to visit my profile on Minixr
Below the posting section is a reverse chronologically ordered list of items that are either aggregated from your imported services or created locally on the site. The items also bear an uncanny resemblance to Pownce even down to the link listings. You can also comment, favorite, and a link to send status updates through mobile phones or IM services such as Google Talk, Jabber, AIM but I didn’t try out those features.
The site is currently in beta but you can sign up now and is expected to launch in January of 2009. It’s currently in French, but they plan on adding English soon. Overall it’s a nice looking service and if you’re a Pownce user you will feel right at home and wonder why the importing and aggregation features haven’t been added on the Pownce service yet after they work so well on Minixr.
If you signup and need some help translating French from the site you may want to use Babelfish.
little over a month ago Yahoo announced that they were turning user profile pages into a social control panel. I spent a little time when they launched and was less than impressed. It was apparent that they had given a small half-hearted effort trying to create a Lifestream. Hutch Carpenter wrote a clear plan on how Yahoo could easily become a leading Lifestreaming service if they focused properly on resources to achieve it. The first step they need to take is simply by adding many of their owned properties which aren’t even currently offered as services to import such as Flickr and Delicious. This cake needs to bake for a while longer before we open the oven door again.
Click image to view my Profile on Yahoo
I recently read over on Steve Rubel’s blog stating that Google was inching closer to Lifestreaming having added a few more features to their user profile pages. Well, just adding a photo stream to what was previously just more of an outpost to other social media profiles doesn’t quite make for a compelling Lifestream, nevertheless it’s a better effort than Yahoo and a more deliberate action that clearly shows they are slowly dropping the pieces of the puzzle in place.
I decided to go edit my profile and see if I noticed anything new since a previous visit. I added my FriendFeed account to my profile and was happily surprised to see that by doing so, Google auto-discovered all of my social media profiles already listed on there. I was then able to pick and choose which of them were to be added to my Google profile as well as determine in which order each of them would appear. Google has added a very nice touch adding the underlying functionality to achieve this and make it easy for people to make their profiles rich very quickly.
Common Craft always does such a good high level explanation, that this video can easily be used as a guide for explaining Lifestreaming to people and helping them understand its benefits regardless of the service used since the explanation is fairly generic. You can see the video below.
Microsoft’s initiative isn’t ready quite yet but you can get started with their beta program at windowslive.com now. I decided to give it a shot but after realizing that it required downloading new local client software for various tools I decided not to go any further. This is not what I would consider a viable contender in the Lifestreaming service game. What is Microsoft thinking? Perhaps they can get a lesson on where the web is going and what not to do from Joost with regards to client software. I’ll keep an eye out for reviews once available and probably give it another shot then, but for now I’ll wait.
The one similarity in all of these is that they are just isolated profiles that provide a disconnected view of our lives to others in the sense that they are not part of a socially interactive eco-system which is what most Lifestreaming services are currently aiming to be. They’re all obviously also tyring to find non-obtrusive ways of getting you to use and stay within their properties as best they can.
I think that’s a shortsighted view and the new web is not about parking ourselves at any one destination. Perhaps this is just an initial plan to dip their toes into this new Lifestreaming phenomenon at a slow pace. They are probably still coming to grips with how to incorporate how we are all evolving in the new socially interactive web. It will be interesting to see how each of these initiatives continue to be executed and ultimately play out.
Here’s his original post discussing all three themes. It’s great to see designers starting to build Lifestreaming themes from the ground up. If you weren’t aware, there a few others available that I currently have listed here. I’m really looking forward to playing with these 3 new themes.
December 2, 2008 Written by:
Mark Krynsky 
Posted in News 
Lifestream Blog Logo by 
content rss
